Rating: 
Summary: Very good. I read it for 7 hours straight!
Review: It's very good. Goodkind has a way of making you think you grew up with Richard and Kahlan. His writing style is his own, even if he does use some elements from other's stories. I loved
SoT, and I am sure you will too.
Rating:
Summary: I just couldn't put it down.
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Stone of Tears. It's a
marvelous sequel to Wizard's First Rule.
Only trouble is I thought it all wound up too quickly and
easily in the last 30-odd pages. All the way through this
book - and it's a fairly large book - the author winds at
least three seperate complex plots: the Kahlan one, the Zedd
one and the Richard one. You know they are all going to come
together in the end; it just happened a bit too fast for me.
It's almost as if the author got fed up or ran out of time
or space or something and decided to just tie it all up with
no explanations. To be honest, it left me feeling a bit cheated. There were two or three situations that were built
up to be almost insurmountable problems and in the end the
solutions turned out to be either "I don't know how or why I did that, but I just did it and it worked!" or you were just
told it has been sorted out with little or no real details about the solution.
Having said all that, I'm really looking forward to the third installment. I sincerely hope that the first few chapters do a "post mortem" of the things that went on at the end of this book to explain them out. Or if not I hope
that at least they'll become clear before the end. Can't wait!
I haven't been this rivetted since I read all the Dune books
or Asimov's Foundation series - as soon as you finish one you just can't wait to get into the next one.
Nigel Davies, South Wales, UK.
Rating:
Summary: Great sequel, can't wait for the third book!
Review: Thrilling sequel to "The Wizard's First Rule." I can hardly
wait for a third book to come out so that I can imerse
myself in the lives of Richard and Kahlan. Just waiting for
another book is tearing me apart. Definitely another
Robert Jordan in the making. This book just cast its spell
and I was trapped, thickly involved plot, that brought me
right into Richard's world. Seem splitting with action and intrigue, I couldn't put it down. I pray he's going to write
at least a trilogy and tie up all the lose ends so that I don't waste away wondering what would happen next
Rating:
Summary: Unfortunately not as good as WIZARD'S FIRST RULE.
Review: Not as tightly written or plotted as the first book, which is a real shame considering the author is writing a third
Rating: 
Summary: A Crying Shame
Review: Stone of Tears The second book (now considered the third because of a new prequil) in the Sword of truth Series by Terry Goodkind Picks up from the previous tale, Wizards first rule. Darken Rahl has been defeated by richard but now it seems a new evil is spreading throughout the world which only Richard can stop, with the help of Kahlan and Zedd and many others of course. I found this book to be less enjoyable than it's predecessor, and although I was drawn in toward the end of the book to keep reading, it was still somewhat of a let down. I found Goodkind to have a little less faith in his readers than I would have enjoyed. I often found him reminding the reader what had happened in the last book so often enough that it drew away from the story (not just minor details but major events). Also it was still quite predictable, while I could tell that Goodkind tried ever so hard to not be so. I was also unamused at the authors repeated use of prophecies, I kept hoping that he would stop using them in the same fashion, and yet he never did. The author seems to also have trouble putting characters away for good. On the bright side there were some good aspects of the book as well. It read amazingly fast for bing near 1000 pages long. Also as far as fantasy books go, the author did manage to define his own creatures and rules rater than relying on others to show him the way. All and all I would not suggest this book for everyone. If your a big Goodkind fan already it might be worth your time, although I would warn those that have already read the first book in the series that this was definitely no an improvement
Rating: 
Summary: Well developed world and characters
Review: After reading 'Wizard's First Rule,' I was a apprehensive about 'Stone of Tears.' WFR involved some child torture that I thought was over the line, as well as some other, very bloody, torture I thought was a bit excessive. Terry Goodkind is a good writer and does a nice job of building his world and his characters both in terms of visual detail and in terms of historic depth. While once in a while his prose is just a litlle ham-fisted, normally he is very precise and eloquent. Stone of Tears is not for kids. It is replete with rape. In fact, it seems that the baddies in this world seem to know of no other real way to deal with women. While I got tired of it, it did not seem unrealistic for the world created. There is even a scene of a demon having sex with a woman, with a special description of his anatomy to heighten the idea of the pain it caused. However, there was no child torture (if there had been any as in WFR, this would have been my last Terry Goodkind book). As it is, I will continue to read the series, though I will not give it to my nephews to read, as I feel they are too young. Overall, Terry Goodkind is one of the better writers in this genre. He has a a smooth writing style and develops the story well. His world is a bit rougher than most, but this can be seen as a necessary addition to the genre. If you want something a bit different, but still well-done, I guess this is it.
Rating:
Summary: 'Good bad good' or 'Good necessary plot stuff very good'
Review: The first book in the series is one of my top 21 books. (21? I've never felt a need to cap the number of books I have really enjoyed.) Even so, I never jumped to read the sequel. How would the followup followup? Would more to the story just be more to the story? Would it pull down my experience of the first book?
Well I finally picked up the second and started to read. My exact rating would be 3.75. A 'good' opening got me interested.
Then 200 pages into the book I was straining to be drawn into the story. I kept being left with the feeling of 'get on with it'. And suddenly it did! The last 700+ pages were (are) worth reading.
Overall, not as good as the first book, but a good maybe very good followup; but unlike the first book that was good enough to stand on its own, I feel this book needs the next book to be good enough to lift this volume up. Which I now have to go buy.
Rating:
Summary: PONDEROUS AND DULL SEQUEL
Review: Good God and there are six more? When I signed up for the Sci-Fi book club several years ago I received the first four books in the Sword of Truth series. The Sci-Fi book club just raved about them being the next great epic fantasy to rival Tolkien. I should have remembered that job one of the book club is to SELL books. Letting it's potential members know their selections were coma inducing would not have been good for business. I managed to get through the first book and since I had the nect three I figured I should read them. Well, the second was as far as I got and I ended up trading them all in at a used book store without ever opening up books three and four.
To Briefly summarize, Richard and Kahlan, easily the most lackluster characters to ever see print in a fantasy, are back. Richard is having trouble controling his powers and is getting bad headaches (although I bet they were nothing compared to the ones I got trying to get through this). The Sisters of Light, a Quasi-Religious group of fanatics who train wizards offer to help. Well, not really offer, more or less force themselve on Richard. Meanwhile Kahlan is off to the Council of the Midlands, dodging all sorts of trouble along the way including a prophecy that she must be executed.
And thus the bulk of the tale becomes these separate, long, ponderous Journies with a lot of muck about prophesies. Goodkind certainly loves to see his words in print that's for sure. Never was so many pages spent accomplishing so little. I didn't care much for the characters in the first book but now I basically despise both of them.
The only way I would recommend this book is if you have a sleep disorder...or need a good paperweight.
Rating:
Summary: Laboriously Paced Nightmare
Review: I made it through Wizard's First Rule and rather liked it and sought to continue in the series. The first book was often slow and tried to avoid arriving at any conclusion to any matter, but the story and the chacacters interested me greatly, so I moved on rather quickly.
Stone of Tears, the second installment of the series was an obvious choice for my next read. Alas, it presently sits half read in a box as I wait for a point in my life so boring as to make me want to finish the book. If it weren't for the fact that I was involved enough in the story to not want to toss the book entirely, it would likely have been given a mere 1 star.
Goodkind has a wonderful imagination, and I don't doubt that some people will find his writing style energizing, and others just love the characters enough that they'll embark on the epic journey of reading this novels to share in some of the pain that their beloved characters endure. When I some day finish this novel I would probably give the third installment a try as there have certainly been interesting moments in the tale Goodkind weaves.
Unfortunately, these stories lack urgency and as a result are not compelling.
Rating:
Summary: Endearing character and epic tale...
Review: Stone of Tears is the second in a series of books revolving around the epic battle of good versus evil. In this book, Terry touches many times on the point that the line between good and evil can, at times, be distorted by our views. With the addition of characters not in the first book, the author weaves a web of hope mixed with despair; love mixed with hatred; and truth with lies. You find yourself at constant odds on what to think about each character and verbally yelling at them to see the obvious or to stop being obtuse. All in all, it's a great read and I couldn't put it down.
| 
